Daggers of the Tongue
by KatastrophicTodd
Summary: "You're biased." Red Hood let a humorless laugh out. "I'm not the one dragging our family drama into work." Green Arrow squirmed in his seat, a few places over. - Second part of I Am Not a Robot (can be read as a stand-alone)-


The Justice League meeting room was filled with its members, a soft chatter between them while they waited for the only member that wasn't there yet.

Flash, who was scanning the room, getting a grasp of all the different conversations going on, noticed an extra chair with a Batman logo on it. He cocked his head and turned to the only person in the room who could have any idea of what was going on.

"Superman, is someone else joining us today?" he tilted his head towards the bat-stamped chairs at the head of the table. Slowly, his teammates quieted down and looked at Superman with curious gazes.

"Uh, well, I…" the Kryptonian scratched the back of his head, glancing at the chairs in confusion. He fell silent mid-sentence and furrowed his brow, clearly listening beyond the walls. A small smile formed on his face and they all relaxed. It wasn't a threat.

"What?" Diana asked when their teammate turned to her and arched his brows in delight.

That's when everyone heard the voices outside the door. Muffled but audible.

"I still think this was unnecessary." A distorted voice complained.

"Hnn"

"You could literally have told her in private and save us both from this situation." The voice kept on. There was a couple of seconds of silence and then Batman answered in a soft voice.

"I meant what I said to you." More silence. "I trust you. And I would never be ashamed of you."

"Whatever, old man."

"Aren't you going to take off the helmet?"

"It's a hood." The voice sounded offended. "I'll take it off when you take off your cowl."

They barely heard a sigh before the door opened. They all straightened and looked anywhere else.

"We are sorry for our tardiness." The gravel voice was back as Batman walked to his seat at the table, facing the door.

A man followed him. He was bulky and tall, maybe just as bulky and tall as Batman. He wore cargo pants and a leather jacket, a red bat on his chest and a crimson hood covered his entire head. He hesitated for a second, faced with the world's mightiest heroes before following the caped vigilante towards the head of the table.

The newcomer didn't acknowledge anyone as he walked slowly but confidently past them. Until Wonder Woman got up and faced him. Everyone tensed, unsure, but then she smiled brightly and flexed her fingers, as if she wished to grasp something. Someone.

"Jay," she whispered. Her voice was soft and happy. Her body language was relaxed and welcoming. Completely trusting. The man froze in place, in shock.

Then his shoulders sagged, the tension leaving him. He took another step towards her.

"Aunt D," though distorted by the hood, his voice was soft. As if that was what she was waiting for, Diana wrapped her strong arms around him. She must have used a considerable amount of strength because a surprised _oof_ escaped her declared nephew.

"Hey," the young man circled his arms around her as well and Diana beamed. Had anyone been looking at Batman, they would have noticed how he was trying to suppress his smile.

Diana stepped back still smiling and put her hands on his shoulders. He cleared his throat when she let him resume his walk towards his seat between her and Batman.

That's when the attention shifted from him to the Dark Knight.

"Thank you all for coming to the meeting." He stopped, waiting for the hooded vigilante to take a sit. "This is the Red Hood. He is my…"

"Associate."

"… son." They looked at each other when everyone raised their brows.

Hal Jordan whistled mockingly somewhere in the room. Red Hood turned his head slowly in his direction, cocking his head and managing to look thoroughly unimpressed. Batman grunted.

"I'm here to help with a case." Red Hood drew a lazy circle on the surface of the table. "I'll leave y'all big guys with your super-secret society as soon as I'm done." He gestured to the whole room, ignoring Batman's pursed lips.

There was some silent tension between father and son, they all saw it, but Batman gave in and proceeded with the meeting. After discussing the latest intervention of the Lanterns in Central City and Lex Luthor's last scheme, Batman turned around to his left to face Wonder Woman and his son.

"As some of you might know, Wonder Woman has been working on a case of human trafficking." Batman said out loud. "My…" he cleared his throat when he felt Red Hood's glare through the helmet, "Red Hood has important information about the organization."

Everyone turned to the young man. Red Hood adjusted his posture a little on his seat and activated the Watchtower's computer with his voice, putting up several files and footage of what seemed to be the trafficking ring in question.

"I had some of my guys tell me what they were up to," he explained, zooming on one of the pictures. "I would have gone myself if hadn't known Wonder Woman was running the case."

"And what did you discover?" Wonder Woman asked, eyeing the holograms.

"Well, it caught my attention because I suspected the League of Assassins may be involved." He raised a hand when he felt Batman opening his mouth. "But, after some investigations, I've discovered that it all connects to Bane."

"Bane?"

"Yes," Jason said. He straightened in the chair and cleared his throat. "My contact in the League confirmed they're not involved. But their agents caught on whatever Bane's got going on."

"Your contact." Bruce's face was blank, his tone controlled, but the other members of the League recognized the steel underneath the words.

Red Hood ignored it.

"Yes, my contact. They shared their information. Turns out Bane is trying different alternatives to Venom, but he's not willing to try them himself. Hence, the abducting." He gestured to the footage of people being shoved inside vehicles.

No one said anything for a whole minute.

"How reliable is this contact." It was a question, but Batman didn't bother to make it sound like one.

Red Hood's shoulders tensed.

"_Very_ reliable," he gritted.

It was remarkable, Clark thought, how they seemed to have a staring contest when they weren't even looking at each other. He winced from his chair at Bruce's other side.

"We can't remove the League of Assassins from the suspects list just because she told you to," Batman's jaw did that violent thing that always made Clark afraid he might break some teeth.

Red Hood turned very slowly to look at Batman. Something dangerous in his body language.

"You _have_ to be kidding me," he softly said, contradicting the barely contained rage.

"You're biased."

Red Hood let a humorless laugh out.

"I'm not the one dragging our family drama into work."

Green Arrow squirmed in his seat, a few places over.

"I trained you," Batman said through his teeth, "to be a detective. Your responsibility is to investigate every possibility, more so if one of the suspects is the leader of a terrorist organization."

"Yeah, well," Red Hood said, "we can all agree to leave the paranoia and prejudice to you. Some of us need to trust people from time to time so we don't jump off a cliff."

"Oh?" Bruce's voice trembled. Clark had never seen him restrain himself like that when he was this angry. "Is that what you were going for when you killed those other international terrorists?"

There was a blur of movement, a loud clank and a labored breath. Red Hood was standing very still, looking ahead to the door. His heavy chair had fallen to the floor with the violent movement.

The silence was deafening. The League members were holding their breath. Not one of them had ever seen Jason and Bruce going at it. And, from what Clark had heard from Dick and Damian, this wasn't even among the worst ones. Clark knew there had been guns and knives at one point. Punches and grenades.

Even knowing this, he looked at Jason closely. He noticed the deep and sharp breaths, the fingers at both sides of his legs, twitching for the holsters. Clark knew Diana was about to come between them, but Jason beat her to it.

"You know what?" His tone was casual as he circled the chair and put it upright, as if nothing had ever happened. "You're completely right. It makes zero sense that I would trust the person who risked her life and position to save my life while my Dad was having a chitchat every other Friday with my murderer."

He wiped the non-existent dust form his pants. He didn't look back to see Bruce's reaction. He looked at Diana, whose eyes were teary and whose lips were pursed. He rested his hand on her shoulder, the lightest touch, and Diana put her strong hand over his and squeezed when he whispered something into her ear. She nodded once.

All of them saw Red Hood walk out the meeting room, shoulders tense and fists clenched, not bothering to close the doors behind him.

"This meeting has concluded," Diana announced.

There were two seconds of complete stillness, and all of a sudden every member of the League wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible.

"Dinah," Diana called out, eyeing Bruce. He hadn't moved since Jason lashed out. "Could you please stay?"

Dinah looked from her, to Bruce, to Clark, somewhere at Bruce's right, trying to talk to him. She nodded and Diana sighed in relief.

She had a nephew to spar with.

ᴥ

It wasn't until he hit the floor for the fifth time that he spoke. He knew tomorrow he'd be peppered with bruises and scratches. He already felt a bruise forming in his jaw from Diana's kick.

"Is he okay?" Jason asked, looking at the floor.

He was beyond mad, and yet, the only thing he could think about was Bruce's stillness. His lack of fire. He'd seen it before. He hated knowing how miserable Bruce was probably feeling after their fight.

"I asked Dinah to stay and help," Diana said, offering a hand for Jason to get up.

He took it and grimaced at the ache in his ribs. Diana gestured for him to follow her to the bench near the entrance.

"Do you want my advice?" she asked, handing him a bottle of water.

Jason swallowed half of it and sat down next to her.

It was strange, how close they had become since the very first time they met. Jason wasn't even six when he had started idolizing Wonder Woman. A fierce and strong woman who stood up for the weak. A heroine who could bring an entire army to their knees.

Very early on in life, he knew he wanted to be as strong as her. He wanted to protect women and children and give back to the world everything good his Mom had done for him. Willis said he shouldn't like a "girl hero" and threw away Jason's Wonder Woman shirt. His Mom had given it to him for his birthday.

When Bruce took him in, he had been too preoccupied surviving to keep up with whatever his favorite superhero was doing. He'd had other good role models, like Leslie. But when he first saw her in person, almost hiding behind Bruce's cape, it was like looking at the moon for the first time.

She was so beautiful and unlike anything Jason had imagined. Her muscles could compete with Bruce's. Her lasso hung from her belt, glowing. And there, on top of her head, she wore the royal tiara. Jason realized he was in the presence of a princess. A warrior princess.

He had gaped and looked at her with wonder when she crouched in front of him, ignoring Bruce's arched eyebrow. And Jason was so afraid to reach out and touch her, or even speak. She _was_ a goddess.

"And who might this little one be?" she asked with the kindest of smiles.

"This is Robin," Bruce explained when he remained in stunned silence.

It was the familiar voice what brought him back to his senses, making him talk before he could even regret it.

"The Boy Wonder," he whispered. In his mind, it was imperative that he stated his other title. He was proud to share even the tiniest thing with her.

"Boy Wonder, huh?" She ruffled his hair. It felt like being blessed by the gods, at the moment. "Seems we already have much in common."

And she had grabbed his hand, nonchalantly and started asking questions about the cave. Jason had looked back at Bruce, not really believing any of it was true.

It took her a long time to convince him not to call her Princess, or Ma'am, or Miss Prince. But Jason couldn't wrap his head around calling her just Diana, like everyone else. It was when she took him out for ice cream once that he remembered his Mom's best friend, who had always given him cookies and smiled when she saw him.

"Can I call you Aunt Diana?" he had asked, almost too shy to speak above a whisper.

It was the first time he saw Diana Prince caught off guard. He had felt anxious, thinking maybe she didn't like the idea, maybe he had read the situation wrong. But then she had given him a blinding smile which Superman would have been jealous of, and just said:

"Yes. Of course."

"When have you ever kept any piece of advice for yourself?" Jason retorted playfully.

"I give you nothing but the best." She smirked, letting the friendly silence settle down between them. "Be a little patient."

"It's hard to be when you have a paranoid bastard throwing all your past mistakes at your face," he said bitterly. He really had thought they were past all that shit.

_What a fool_.

"I know," she squeezed his shoulder, "I've worked with him for years. But your control will make you the better man. And you'll win the arguments without feeling guilty, afterwards."

He buried his face on his hands and groaned. He hated knowing that she was right. He hated that he knew how Bruce's mind worked. He hated that he knew, when Bruce asked him for a second chance, that it would not be easy.

"I'm so angry right now."

"You have the right to be angry." She commented.

"Not really, though," he sighed. "I want to be angry because he doesn't trust my word on Talia. But I know this doesn't have anything to do with me."

He brought his fist down, frustrated. Diana hummed.

"Talia kept two of his sons hidden from him. She's tried to killed people he cares about on multiple occasions." Diana stated. "It's going to be a long time before Bruce trusts _anything_ that comes out of her mouth."

"Yeah, but I _know_ her, D." He ran his fingers through his curls.

"Maybe," Diana conceded. "Or maybe you know the parts of her she wants you to know. You vouching for your Mom isn't going to change the past."

"She's not my Mom," Jason said petulantly.

"She gave you life. In my culture, that makes her your Mother." She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "But then again, you are just too prone to idolizing women around you."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It can be," she looked serious, "if you're willing to look past all their flaws."

Jason clenched his teeth, not willing to admit the truth. He knew he'd have to talk to Bruce and set some boundaries, talk things out. He was probably in some dark corner, blaming himself for every catastrophe that happened since his birth. Jason was overwhelmed, realizing how wrong that made him feel. They really were a fucked up family.

"So." He cleared his throat. "As your nephew, I feel obligated to visit Themyscira sometime. Meet queen Hippolyta. Be trained by badass Amazons. You could brag about how cute I am and everything."

She stared at him a couple of seconds and burst out laughing. She wiped a tear and smiled.

"You really have a death wish."


End file.
